


Curiosity

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: American McGee's Alice
Genre: F/M, Interspecies Relationship(s), archive fic, creepy old men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 09:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14041323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: It's winter before he strikes upon a gift she will accept.





	Curiosity

**Author's Note:**

> Challenge story written for Laylah, dormouse_in_tea and threewalls. As to Alice's age when she's released, I took the eleven years she spent in various institutions, added it to the "seven and a half exactly" she was in Looking Glass, and tacked on a few months to convince the docs that she's better now, really.
> 
> Challenge: Large-predator "virgin sacrifice" bestiality--the sort where the victim is offered up by someone else, quite possibly bound, and then the sacrifice is a little bit different than everyone (except, most likely, the beast) expects.

Alice is nineteen when she leaves the asylum to live with a half-remembered aunt, normal in every way except that she shies away from children playing with jacks and men at dice, refuses to eat rabbit. Once she proves to her uncle's satisfaction that she's in no immediate danger of running amok, he goes back to his papers and his pipe, gruffly but impersonally ignoring her. Her aunt is made of more nervous stuff, for what _is_ one to do with a poor relation, tainted by madness, when said relation is female? Why, they may be left with the girl on their hands for the rest of their days.

Alice doesn't care about things like that. She was too young to care when the fire took her away from society, and nothing she learned in the asylum has taught her what a terrible thing it is to be a young woman--but not nearly young enough--who is merely pretty, with no fortune and a none-too-spotless past to recommend her. She doesn't think she'd like to get married just now anyway; the boys she remembers were crude and silly, the men stuffy and impatient. Except for her father, of course. Except for _Cat._

In the autumn, one of her uncle's business contacts comes to dinner to discuss a new venture and is struck by her aloof silences, how little notice she gives the rest of the room as she cuts at her meat. In her dainty hand, the knife is expertly wielded, her stroke smooth and confident. She is a world unto herself, and he remembers now the rumors that surrounded her abrupt appearance in this house, the whispers of a fire, of madness, the half-shocked, half-titillated claims that she'd been prone to fits of violence. He can't believe it now, seeing her so utterly calm, but he's curious all the same. He is also quite wealthy; he can afford to indulge his curiosities.

It's scandalous the gifts he brings her after that, both in number and in kind, or would be if anyone knew the true purpose for his visits. Alice's uncle barely takes note of his associate's frequent presence in his house--there's much work to be done and little time to do it if they wish to stay ahead of the game--but her aunt flutters, wrings her hands, hovers. Alice begins to realize that this man, this collector, is not entirely welcome, but he's never been entirely welcome to her. He doesn't bring up marriage at least, but neither does she wish to be kept like a souvenir or a trophy (the word "mistress" never crosses her mind).

Most of his gifts are rejected at once, which might be considered rude, if he were not already taking undue liberties in the gifting. The strings of pearls, the delicate brooches, the earrings that glitter transparent and icy when he spills them into her hand--all return with him, nestled safe in his pocket away from prying eyes. He never brings anything that cannot be concealed, suspecting her temperament from watching her all evening with never his glance returned, not even once.

It's winter before he strikes upon a gift she will accept: a pair of gloves lined with rabbit fur. As she sits there with them cradled in her lap, eyes downcast and fixed on things he will never see, her face in that moment is that of a little child holding some memento of a beloved pet.

 _Fur_ , he thinks. _If it's fur she likes, then furs she will have._

He has no idea how close he is to the mark or by what a vast gulf he's missed it. He's far too sane to understand that when Alice is alone that night, when she shuts the door and listens for a long time to make certain the house is still, she takes out his gloves and slips them on with a frisson of mingled guilt and pleasure. The feeling of fur on her hands is exquisite, and she ceases to think of rabbits--of Rabbit--once she blows out the lamp. It's better when she turns them inside out, and she strokes her own face, her shoulders and her neck, and allows herself to pretend she's not alone.

Her admirer is more bold when next he comes, though not too bold. The gift he brings is still befitting her station, still appropriate for the unmarried relative of a man he didn't go to school with, who belongs to none of his clubs, and who is his social inferior--if anything could be appropriate in that situation. He brings her a hat, and a muff to warm her hands, and as she lights up in uncomplicated delight, he thinks, _Yes. Now we're getting somewhere._

Alice's aunt has exhausted her stock of propriety and worry, and is beginning to see the sense in it. What else _could_ you do with an orphaned girl no decent man will ever touch? And if he keeps her well, and no one knows, then at least she's out of their hands. When she sees her niece's favorable reaction, she vows not to chaperone them next time. She doesn't want to be privy to their arrangement as it is.

That night, with her hands sunk in softness up to her wrists, Alice dreams of returning to Wonderland, being brought back, _fetched_ back. The card guards would wrap her hands in soft bindings and take her to the nearest castle, only the throne they'd bring her to would be empty at first. And then, like the glimmers off the winking diamonds she'd turned away, the slow flash of a wide smile would cut through empty air, a body collecting around that disembodied grin.

 _"I was waiting for you,"_ Cat would say, and she would go to him, a human pet for a kingly cat. And he would...and he....

 _That's not how it is among cats,_ says the whisper in her ear as she wakes with a strange ache between her legs, breathing hard.

"How is it, then, Cat?" she asks her pillow, but the sunlight streaming through her window mortars a wall between her and the dream--she will tell herself it's only a dream--and she doesn't wait for an answer that will hurt her by not coming.

She looks up with neither surprise nor anticipation when her aunt leads her visitor in with his most audacious gift yet...and leaves them, expression rigid, eyes relieved. He's still in his coat, his hat and gloves in hand, dark eyes lit with excitement and a flat, largish box tied up with string tucked under one arm. He isn't exactly old, she realizes distantly, not quite as old as her father would have been, and his enthusiasm makes him seem even younger. She suspects he's handsome, but she can't quite see it; his smile is all lip, no teeth.

What he brings her is a coat, not of rabbit but panther, and for a moment she can't speak, can't breathe. The inky fur is sheened with even darker rosettes, smears of nothingness painted on a pelt of night, and when she slides her fingers through its plush softness, it feels just the way she remembers.

"Oh," she says, unable to lift it out of the box with her hands shaking like they are. Her admirer is quick to assist, and she stands meekly as he drapes the heavy coat around her and steps back to regard what he's done.

She looks small in that first moment, a little girl playing dress-up, and he realizes with an awful clarity that this is what draws him to her; not the prospect of madness, but how often she seems like a child in a woman's body, a Sleeping Beauty who grew apace with the passage of time, but who learned nothing in the ten long years she lay dreaming. He feels his obsession flicker on the edge of self-disgust, but then she cocks her head to the side, rubs her pale cheek against the dark fur at her collar, and the way she closes her eyes and _purrs_ makes his blood race. He's no defiler of children, but she is no child.

And as the moments pass, she is no longer meek, her gaze sharpening with an intensity he's never seen there before. She's finally looking at the world, seeing him for the first time, and her green eyes spark with challenge. He feels his mouth grow dry as she squares her shoulders and lifts her chin, indifference dropping from her like a coat discarded, and he thinks that he could have her right now, that he could throw her down on the fading Turkish rug and take her on that fur, _in_ that fur, except that something in her eyes stops him. There's something there not mad but knowing, and it's dangerous in ways he doesn't quite understand. He's not sure he wants to understand it--he won't say that it's fear--and so when she walks by him without a word, he lets her go. It is, he believes suddenly, the only wise thing he's done in months.

Alice doesn't see her aunt or hear the questions fired at her as she climbs the stairs to her room. All she's aware of is the soft whisper of fur all around her, folding her in, weighing her down. She closes her door behind her, locks it from the inside, and drops the key into her pocket. She doesn't think as she does any of this, but neither does she hesitate.

Everything looks unfamiliar to her now, the vanity table that sits dusty and disregarded, the wardrobe that holds her meager possessions, her prim little bed with its neat corners and plain, rough blankets. There's no color to any of it, and she thinks she'd be happy with a hole in the ground or a sturdy branch of her own to lounge across as she waits for the lost or the unwary to pass by. She's as sane as she'll ever be, but England doesn't fit her anymore, and having realized it, she can't go back to pretending otherwise.

"Cat?" she calls, a sick feeling growing in her stomach, though she won't acknowledge the possibility that he might not answer. "Cat, I'm ready to go back, now. I'm...." She can't say it at first, because if he doesn't answer, if she _can't_ go back, then the hurt will be impossible to bear. But she's Alice, and she will always have courage enough to face the impossible, and she says, "I'm ready to come home."

And all at once he's there, with his crescent moon smile and harvest moon eyes, grey and black and filling out once more to his former glory. He's beautiful and powerful and not safe at all, but his grin is just for her.

"You look lovely in fur," he says, amusement and something else purring his words, and she remembers what he said that morning-- _among cats._

"Will I look lovely with claws as well?" she wonders, hoping but not asking, and he shakes his head.

"You'll always be Alice," he tells her, real regret in his voice, but admiration as well. It pains her to know that she'll never lose her human form, never be _like_ him, that it'll always be strange...but she thinks--hopes--that he won't mind that so much. He'll always be Cat, _her_ cat, as she became his Alice.

"There's worse things to be, I suppose," she says and lets her marvelous new pelt drop to the floor, standing before him as herself only, the way it's always been.

Cat's grin is proud and possessive, and he's purring as he works his magic, leaving behind nothing for anyone to find but a discarded skin and a faint, fading smile.


End file.
